Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Leo Lab Landing

Monday morning Jai and Wal floated into Leo Burnett to find a buzzy place full of super friendly people. The office is crazy spacious, great for throwing our beloved hacky sack around. One of the other teams arrived with us yesterday, the third team of the Leo lab join us today. We spent our first day introducing ourselves, admiring serious finger boarding skills and acquaintingourselves with the two floored cafeteria.

great! like this industry isn't already fuckin hard enough to get into.

new teams have to go through lots of shit, but these guys now have their blog readers on top turning against them for trying to make a monday a bit more fun. i imagine you all prefer placement teams who just sit quiet in the corner and let you get on producing your adwank.

adland, i salute you, you are full of pricks and i'm surprising that you attract any talent at all.

Sorry, I disagree. If you/they can't take advice from people in the industry the f**k off... some people are just trying to help the progress rather than treating the whole getting into advertising as one big jolly. Yes have fun, but its all about the work. Spend time crafting that book, bit cutting our cardboard men.

Ok so we all established that it was a bit 'look at me, look at me' stunt which may or may not have gone down well at the agency.

It's 6pm so maybe the guys can shed a little light on how well recieved it was and if it made meeting the other placement teams awkward etc. Though if Wal and Jai are a good team they'll probably be down the pub with the rest of the team right now having a few getting to know you bevs.

However what 5:35 is probably getting at is that there's a line between constructive criticism and just saying something to get a reaction.

Keep doing what you think is right boys. It's clear that you're not getting any great advice here

not at the pub (yet), work still has to be done. the minatures were received really well, quite some people came up to us and told us that they liked them, it made the process of 'hello we re the new team' a bit more fun, and that was the point of it. the other leo lab team reacted quite well and quick and wrote a little newspaper page about random facts and themselves which they've placed on each desk the next morning.

I would say there are just as many aspiring creatives commenting on this blog as those in the industry already. So, in saying that I'd take what people say with a pinch of salt.

Much of it may be valid, but some may be tainted with a little envy - envy that they're not on placement at Leo's also.

I say well done on being brave enough in going through with your balloon people idea. I'm not sure I'd have gone through with it even if I'd wanted to.

All ideas are hit and miss, you never please all the people all the time. As long as it had the desired effect, which it sounds like it did - it was a means to meet people and get noticed then that's all you need.

Who cares if anyone else approves!

Now just go and prove what great creatives you are, prove your undoubted talents and you'll be well on your way to a much deserved job.

@anonymous 8:29pm - actually, thats the kind of stuff we would like to write about, the people, the briefs, the experience, but lately we decided to de-advertise our blog a bit, cause whenever we write about work people just go hardcore on it, this blog's been running for 1,5 years now and it was never like that. it does influence you, when you are about to post something, but first you have to think how people are gonna react to it, this blog should be fun.

especially when we write about other people. for example when we posted the lowe law, we were really sad people insulting our creative director, its one thing if people dont like us, but something else if they slag off someone we write about.but hey, i guess that's the internet. we'll have a think.

personally i think this is the worst blog i have ever read in my whole life. but its for that very reason i visit it so often. i loved the post in the comments section on scamp... will wal ever get a job? and salute wal for coming back with a response with good humour!

You can't be too sensitive in this job. As creatives your work will often come back with negative feedback, someone along the line won't liek the work for God-knows what reason, and it won't make sense to you.

The day you become too worried about presenting work, be it on the net or in person is a really bad sign. You've got to be prepared to show all your ideas, often a great idea will be hidden with them.

Rather harsh things being said on here, but i think that people have to remember ITS THE FIRST DAY! plus hows it going to look if jai and wal start posting up everything their working on and other agencies start seeing it? Its fair enough posting our own work that we've made up from nowhere but work that (with alot of luck) could end up out there with leo burnetts name slapped on it cant be posted on a blog thats liked to BBH and Lunar BBDO and god knows who else is roaming around here. It was a quirky introduction technique and it might not be for everyone but i doubt they'll be doing things like that everyday. But if they do, well theyre there and your not!

Obviously for confidentiality reasons they can't post agency work, but they can do their own work and should do!

They can still outline what they're doing without giving details or specifics.

Good luck you guys and look forward to hearing how things are progressing.

In a weird way I might take all these harsh comments as a complement - souds odd I know. But if people didn't see you as a threat or think you're any good, they wouldn't even waste their time telling you they thing something is crap.

Don't let all that comments bring you down. It's envy and not fucking "teaching you to live with critics". Because critics are mostly impartial. Most of these comments are not.

I think the idea with the balloons is really nice. In our first week at WK we used balloons as well. We sticked them up a wall shaping "Shh!". Every balloon hat a secret about us inside so people had to pop them. It's good to do some fun stuff to introduce you to the agency. People like being entertained. And in the end that's our job. Entertaining people and make them buy things.

But always keep in mind: the work is most important. But I know you know that.

anonymous 8:21I had job offers with my former partner kristin, i had job offers on my own in between. i am happy that i didnt take it as i am pretty confident that we'll do great together with jai. for me its a new count, we started in january, and for that we're doing alright.

It's nice you can afford not to take jobs and be choosey about where you work.

I would be waary of becoming stuck in a rutt of placements. It's great you've had job offers but it might be worth taking a full time job, that way more doors open for you. You're likcly to get better work too!